She is lucky too
by Lectura35
Summary: Arthur and Ron share a short but meaningful conversation about love and family.


Thanks _so much_ to Pili204 for her Beta work! You´re amazing, dear :)

**Disclaimer**: All characters belong to J.. I´m just playing and enjoying with them.

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**She is lucky too.**

The pain stabbing Arthur's heart couldn't be described in any possible way.

In his almost fifty years, he never thought he would live to see that moment.

_His son_.

Twenty days ago he had buried his son; bone of his bones, blood of his blood, a part of his own soul gone for ever.

Carrying that irrevocable certainty, he moved with heavy steps toward the stairs of a house as silent as it never had been, but the image that presented itself in the sitting room made him stopped on his tracks.

Ron was reclined over the couch, one of his hands lingering over Hermione´s sleeping form. His hand traveled delicately from her hair to her forearm, all the while describing a random pattern that captivated the oldest Wesley's attention. Ron's eyes were glued to the girl's face.

His younger son was _so_ in love.

"Aren't you tired, son?"

The question startled Ron, who was almost dozing off clinging to his girlfriend.

"Uh? Oh, yes…yes, Dad… It's just… Hermione fell sleep here and I don't want to wake her up so… I'm just... here…"

The fatigue clouding his eyes and betraying his eternal boyish smile went straight to Arthur's core, making the guilt he knew would afflict him till the end of his days even deeper. Parents always tend to feel guilty about their kids, whether they're doing things right or not, and Arthur asks himself every single moment if he had failed his family in some way.

He wondered why Fred, always full of joy, now reposed lifeless inside a casket; why two of his sons were forever scarred; why Percy had turned against his own siblings during the darker period of their life; and why that brilliant witch now resting below his kid had gone through _torture_.

It killed Arthur to see that Ron was finally with the girl he had wanted since he had discovered girls existed, but instead of enjoying that awaited bliss, his son was terrified to the point of not being able to leave Hermione out of this sight for a simple minute.

"She looks exhausted…"

"Yes, she does." The hand resting over Hermione´s arm slid to her hand and entwined her fingers. "She helps all day long in the castle, and then she's helping here… and at nights she has nightmares about her parents, and sometimes it's difficult for me to make her go back to sleep-" He stopped abruptly and his ears turned a deep shade of pink.

Arthur smiled a little in spite of himself. He already _knew_ Hermione spent her nights in Ron's bed and, although he was quite a conservative man, he couldn't find anything wrong in that fact. They had known each other forever, they were openly in love, and all the traumatic events that had affected their lives had made them matured in ways that couldn't reflect their biological age at all.

"Well, you know how she is," Ron finished almost shyly

"I think _you_ know how she is, Ron." The grin that overcame the boy's face at his statement made Arthur's heart shake a little bit.

"Yes… yes, I think that I do," Ron said quietly

"All right…, since you're having a nap here, I'll head upstairs to check on your mother."

"Dad…"

"Yes?"

"I… I just…" Ron didn't seem to know how to continue. After a thoughtful silence, he added, "thanks, Dad. Thanks for everything. You are great… and all of us are really proud of you. He stopped, looked up earnestly at him, and then continued in a firmer voice, "And mom is really lucky to have you."

_His son_.

His son, who had always found it so difficult to say the right words at the right moment had given him some kind of response to his perpetual questions.

The tears blurring Arthur's eyes only allowed him to nod his head in honest gratitude, and he ruffled Ron's hair like he used to do when the man in front of him was only a toddler.

Before leaving the room, he pointed his hand to Hermione, who had snuggled closer to Ron's body and was sighing softly.

"She is lucky too, son." he said in a hoarse voice. "She _is_ lucky, too."


End file.
